Age of Wolverine: Acts of Rebellion
by IronRaven
Summary: A collection of shorts set in my AoW universe, an not connected to my main timeline.


Age of Wolverine: Acts of Rebellion  
Ironraven

When I started Age of Wolverine, I started where I often do- at the end. The problem is, I was at the end of the end... oops. Didn't realize it right away. So the purpose of Acts of Rebellion will be a collection of vignettes and shorts, showing what was, the world that was before one Earth's Mutant Civil War came to the final few moves, and eventually checkmate.I won't promise they will be in chronological order- I'll keep an internal timeline here if needed.

Lets cover the basics first.

_-AoW:AoR_-

"Hello Charles. Is that Wade I see by your car?" Wolverine waved familiarly as he stepped from behind a stack of barrels. "I wouldn't come any closer, my friend- your chair could get stuck in this dirt."

"We haven't been friends for a while, Logan. That ended when you had my daughter-in-law murdered." Charles Xavier's face was hard to read as he stopped his chair at the edge of the concrete. "And yes, that is Wade- he has orders to kill me rather than let me be taken hostage."

Logan laughed, hard and loud and long. "Oh, oh, Charles, still so dramatic. It would make you a martyr, your man would lie and claim I killed you."

"Why did you ask me to come here, Logan? I don't have a lot of spare time."

"I asked you to come here because I didn't order Jean killed. It happened and my people are to blame, but she fell in battle. She did not need to die, but she did, and with honor." The short, stocky man sighed sadly. It had been a waste from the view of Logan the man and father, it shouldn't have happened. But to Wolverine the warrior and rebel leader, it had removed a powerful enemy from the battlefield while enhancing the abilities of one of his best people. "And no one else needs to. I'm not asking you to join me- that will never happen. As you said, we are no longer friends, but I do not hate you or your students. If you will not join us, the please do not stand against us. Hide yourselves at your school and ignore the world until it is safe to come out again."

"I can't do that Wolverine. You know that I can not, and why."

"Please, Charles. Please. Change your mind." Logan shook his head. "Do you even understand why I'm fighting? It isn't for power- why would I want to rule the world, it would take me from the work I love and trap me in an office, hidden away from my family. I'm doing this for my daughters, and the others their age, including _your_ students." He read the dubious and doubting expression on Charles' face. "You know what humans can do. Don't you remember that it was a human who put you in that chair? It was humans who burned out that family in Kentucky, the one with all those the mutant children. Was it them you were protecting? Was it the Gutheries you were protecting by not fighting to save them? Because my people were trying, we were just too late to anything but avenge the deaths of my young brothers and sisters."

Charles felt his checks flush- they'd tried. Weather had grounded the _Blackbird_, and no one else had been able to respond in time. "The humans are frightened. By you and your people for the most part, and you can not deny that."

"I don't, and they should be. We are stronger, smarter, and longer lived, you know this to be true. And they hate us for it. They will destroy us because they are different- I fought the Nazis because they killed those who are different. I fought on the side of the First Peoples, who were being systematically destroyed or locked into reservations because they weren't the right kind of human. You'd be happy to live on handouts on your safe little reservation- do you really expect me to believe that you think your students deserve that? Do you want that for Nate? Your own grandson, Charles? To have an M burned into his forehead and forced to live as a subhuman in despair and squalor- that is what Destiny has foreseen."

"There is still time to change their opinions."

Logan spat his words, "Time! Time? They have had time enough. How much more time do they need? The whole of history they have had time to change. But what do they do? They blame us, try to destroy us, when they aren't too busy with their own petty, tribal bickering. Do you still read the paper Charles? In New York alone, humans have murdered their fellow normal men twelve times in the past five days. They fight in their little bands, their temporary nations, squabbling and turning on each other over resources. They can't even keep from killing themselves." Logan crouched down, picking up a handful of soil. "I can smell the pesticides, the heavy metals, the PCBs- this ground is dead, and ten generations from now will still be dead. There is more life on Mars than in my hand- you're the telepath, you can sense life, even if it is just germs and mold and worms. And they dump this toxic filth here, HERE, when they have a play ground for their own children on the other side of that fence. They poison their own children and you think they should be allowed to make choices for every living thing on the planet?" He pointed to the chain link on the other side of the desolate dirt yard a hundred yards away, the toxic dirt dribbling out of his fist like a crude hourglass. The sound of laughter carried to them faintly.

"They are learning, they are getting better."

"Yes, they are learning. Your father helped make nuclear weapons, I was trained to deliver them or destroy them. How many nuclear powers are there today? How many were there ten years ago? The humans have enough to blast the Earth to glass after boiling off the seas and burning the sky. Any nation with even the slightest industry can make poison gas, and hospitals are accidental horror shows of biological weapons production the likes of which few nations have ever run. They are learning to destroy themselves more efficiently."

Xavier glared. "And what, pray tell, would have us do? Take over the world?" He waved his hand, taking in all the world.

"Yes, damn it. Yes, then declare peace. Any who do not change their course away from a global sucide pact will be punished- not the kids who wear the uniforms, not the common worker trying to feed his family, not the innocent citizens who have no control, but the fat, rich old men who give the orders, who count the fortunes of war and destruction of their world only as profit.

"I won't kill the humans, at least not the innocent ones Charles, just rule them. Rule them wisely and fairly. They can't say that among for themselves, much less about us mutants. They kill each other over who's interpretation of the same religious tracts is right. They kill each other over parking spots! One of those murders in this city was the end of a fight between two brothers, over a cookie. Two, grown men, brothers, killing each other over a damn _cookie._ They kill us because we breath.

"They are locusts. They destroy everything they touch. What they don't kill right away, they rape and pillage. They are making the forests into deserts, and the deserts into parking lots. They wipe out species and they don't even know it. Even the oceans aren't safe- they have made dead zones larger than your beloved city. They never see the true night sky, they don't know the dark, they are cutting themselves off from the real world. They can't conquer the stars, so they'll hide them behind light and smog." Logan shook himself, angrily, like a great beast.

"Again, Charles, I ask you to join me, or step aside. I'm not fighting over trifles; I'm fighting for the survival of our children, and our world. And yes, for the survival of the humans. I will drag them kicking and screaming to salvation."

"Logan, have you ever listened to yourself?" Xavier shook his head. He'd expected... not this. It was rambling, but seductive in it's outrage.

Logan snorted with mirth. "Yes, actually. I usually write these little monologues out, and proof read them, practice them. Speeches don't come easily to men of action, like your Wade and I. Today was off the cuff." Logan walked towards his one time student and friend. "I'm going to let you go, Charles. As a favor to our lost friendship, and to your late father; hopefully the seed of fatherhood in you will let you see how best to save _your_ children, or least Scott's." Logan strolled past.

Wade Wilson had tensed when his former teammate moved towards the Boss. He wasn't aware of the pistol leaving it's holster. He was carrying an antique, a hundred year old howdah pistol from the British Empire's time in India. It was designed to stop an angry tiger or enraged elephant with a quarter pound, one inch lead ball, with a spare if you missed- the two barrels wouldn't kill Logan, but they would slow him down real fast.

Then the killer walked past without harming the Professor. Wade's teeth were still clenched as his fellow Canadian approached him, his fingers tight on his weapon, but not on the trigger. "Logan."

"Been a long time, Bub. My wife wanted me to ask if you are feeling ok." Once he would have wrapped his arms around the handsome young man in a bearhug. But they'd fought over something a long time ago, there was only one other person who knew what it was really over.

"Yeah. The Rebirth formula is still working, and your damn devil genes are still keeping me from falling apart. No cancer, not even any new scars since then. But that was a pretty good try last time- you almost got my spleen."

Logan shook his head."It was on the right side; the spleen is on the left. And you could have stepped aside."

" 'Spleen' sounds funnier than 'gallbladder', and you know I had to try to stop you." Wade Wilson stepped back from the man he'd admired once, who had once been his teacher and leader. One of the two men who's very blood had saved his life. On it's own, Mr. Wilson's finger move inside the trigger guard. "Enough of the Weapon X reunion, you are a menace to public health."

"Wade, let him go." Charles' voice was sharp with disappointment. In Logan, in himself. "He came here to talk- if wanted to harm us, I'm certain that the car would be on fire, you'd be in pieces, and I'd be quite dead."

**Author's notes:  
**The worst thing is, I'm not sure who I'd side with in this conflict.

This is not intended as a personal political missive- if you've got a rant, keep it to yourself. **  
**


End file.
